Friday, April 1, 2011

Romney support falling, Huck up

On Monday we'll release numbers on the Republican primary for President in Florida. This is a state where it's generally assumed that Mitt Romney is the favorite, because he did pretty well there in 2008. A deeper look comparing how Romney did in various states in 2008 to how he's polling now though suggests that's a flawed assumption.

Over the course of the last five months PPP has polled Republican voters in 16 different states that had primaries or caucuses while Romney was still in the race for President in 2008. Comparing the support Romney received then to the support he has now does not present a pretty picture for his chances at winning the nomination. On average he is doing 14 points worse than he did in his first campaign. These numbers suggest that little of the support he received in 2008 was 'hard' and that with a different field of candidates he could have difficulty getting the same people who voted for him the first time around to do it again.

Some observations on the data:

-Romney's level of support has declined from his 2008 share of the vote in 14 out of 16 states that we've polled. If there's a silver lining for him though it's the 2 states where he's improved- the key early contests of New Hampshire and South Carolina.

-Romney's drop is much more severe in caucus states, where he may have been one of few candidates with the resources to make a serious effort, than primary states. If you throw out the caucus states of Iowa, Maine, Nevada, Colorado, and Minnesota from this analysis though Romney still has an average drop of 8.5 points from the support he received in the 11 primary states.

I don't know whether these declining numbers for Romney are because voters have actually turned against him over the last three years or because he was more of a default choice they weren't terribly enthused about in the first place, but they certainly show he hasn't been making a whole lot of new friends since his last bid.

Here are the full numbers:

State

Romney 2008%

Romney Poll Position

Shift

Arizona

34%

23%

-11

California

35%

22%

-13

Connecticut

33%

28%

-5

Colorado

60%

19%

-41

Illinois

29%

12%

-17

Massachusetts

51%

47%

-4

Minnesota

41%

13%

-28

Missouri

29%

13%

-16

New Jersey

28%

18%

-10

Tennessee

24%

11%

-13

Maine

52%

15%

-37

South Carolina

15%

17%

+2

Nevada

51%

31%

-20

Michigan

39%

26%

-13

New Hampshire

32%

40%

+8

Iowa

25%

18%

-7

Mike Huckabee on the other hand has seen his support on the rise since 2008. He's polling an average of 3 points better than his performance in these 16 states the first time he ran.

-Huckabee's doing better in 11 of the 16 states we've looked at- the exceptions are the important states of Iowa and South Carolina (although that had a lot to do with Jim DeMint being in the poll), and the less important states of Minnesota, Tennessee, and Missouri.

-There is no difference between primary and caucus states for Huckabee's numbers the way there is for Romney's.

Huckabee's been picking up supporters over the last three years. Romney's been losing them. It'll be interesting to see if Huckabee actually takes advantage of this opportunity.

Geez even in Oklahoma there were still at least 8 or so candidates on my ballot. Let's see: Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Thompson, Brownback, Paul, Keyes...seems someone can't count better than a 5th grader, that's for sure.The reason they are deserting Romney is they are more familiar with him now than they were then. People have realized that you CAN check someone's past record and not just believe whatever spews from his/her mouth on the campaign trail. The last two years are proof of that.

2) Purposefully Romney is keeping a low profile-he does not want high expectations or want to peak too soon. This is very obvious...

3) Romney has been doing what REAL candidates/potential candidates do-stay relevant, collect a lot of big money support, and organize a real campaign that can outlast the competition.

4) Notice how Romney pops in and out of the news? He lets the crazies do their thing then he will steamroll them all with fundraising and momentum. It will be come more obvious for you doubters over the course of the next few months:)

tmrussell46 ~ you make good points. I do think there's a very good chance for Romney to basically seem like the only reasonably sane choice just by sort of... not behaving like a total lunatic like the rest of 'em.

that said, it really depends on how strong the whole tea party lunacy type thing is... and how much their hate there is left for "ObamaCare" because I don't see how a party who seems entirely based around hating "ObamaCare" can turn around and support a guy who did the exact same thing as Governor.

I totally agree with "the more familiar with" comments. Knowledge is power. To really know Huckabee is to love him, the more real facts I know about him, the more there was too like. But to know Romney is to have buyer's remorse. This one page alone is more than enough: www.massresistance.com/romney . And the more I know about him... yikes. I don't remember, does this page even mention the cheap gov't sponsored abortions? 8(

Funny, tmrussel145, Bachmann raised more money than Romney this first quarter AND she goes around getting attention too. I don't think she'll get President mind you, but it kind of blows your point out of the water.